Heroes of the Dorm starts the next shift in pop culture

(Heroes of the Storm/YouTube.com)


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SALT LAKE CITY — “The Worldwide Leader in Sports” showed a video game Sunday night and people went crazy.

ESPN2 aired the finale of Heroes of the Dorm, a college tournament for the new Blizzard game Heroes of the Storm, Sunday night and there are lots of people who were not happy. This may seem trivial, dumb or pandering, but guess where these eSports are going? To the top.

ESPN shows people driving cars, spelling words, eating lots of food really fast, catching fish or hitting balls with a tapered stick, but you show one video game and everyone loses their minds. Traditional fans will be mad, but that doesn't matter because people are watching and talking about it.

ESPN had huge numbers with poker; no one cared because poker is “cool.” ESPN shows multiple fantasy football/baseball/everything else shows; no one cared because fantasy is now “cool.” The NFL Draft lasted three days — and it’s not sports, there is no competition, just the premise of competition.

#poll

Well, pretty soon eSports and the nerd culture will take their place near the top because it’s cool to a lot of people who aren’t “cool.” The network is slowly getting into WWE, like their Brock Lesnar news in March — not because it’s sports, but because people watch. ESPN is tapping a new market that happens to be huge.

In 2009, according to the ESRB, the video game industry had $10.5 billion in revenue. In 2014 sales were in the area of $12 billion, according to CNET, which they say was a “down year.” Also, TV markets want to capture the most important 25-40 age range, and according to ESRB, the average gamer age is 34.

The eSports format isn’t the cool thing. People will make fun of it.

I can't wait until the #HeroesOfTheDorm winners take on the #HeroesOfMomsBasement in the Geek Bowl. — Jody Genessy (@DJJazzyJody) April 27, 2015

You will be called a nerd.

"I can't believe ESPN2 is showing nerds play video games." - the nerd who plays fantasy football — Zach Bloxham (@zbloxham) April 27, 2015

ESPN will be ridiculed all the way to the bank.

Tonight we all make fun of #HeroesOfTheDorm. Ten years from now we will all be covering it. Weep for the future, friends. — Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) April 27, 2015

What should be really scary for anyone making fun of this event is that Heroes of the Storm is actually a relatively small game. It’s actually not even going to be released for another month, June 2 to be precise. There are games with significantly bigger footprints.

Last year ESPN online streamed the League of Legends world championship — which is the same game style as Heroes of the Storm — and 27 million people watched from around the world, with an average view time of 67 minutes, according to Riot Games.

In comparison 23.5 million watched game seven of the 2014 World Series and 18 million people watched game five of the NBA Finals. This isn't a one-time thing: Riot Games points out that the 27 million is down 5 million from the previous year. In the year 2013, there were 32 million viewers. Sunday Night Football had 21.6 million as a high in 2014. Unfortunately, we don't have numbers for the show from Sunday night yet, but the social impact seemed high, with it trending around the world on Twitter.

So guess what? If you have a problem with it, that’s on you. These game events aren’t season-long shows — not yet at least — although the Madden franchise ran Madden Nation for four seasons from 2005-08.

These MOBA, multiplayer online-battle arena games, fit perfectly with TV. There are clear goals — get to the core and take it down — small teams — 3v3 or 5v5 depending on the game — and players have roles. Yes, there is a basic learning curve, but there is action happening all the time so anyone can jump in and watch.

Companies are also capitalizing by doing what Marvel has done so well with their movies: Don’t apologize for being you. Marvel stopped avoiding comic book storylines just because some people wouldn’t get it. They followed the format that made comics popular. This is what ESPN2 did last night. The event isn’t a drudgery, it’s not dumb and people want to watch it. The announcers were excited.

This is Gus Johnson-level excitement and people wanted to join. People flock towards enthusiasm. The high school football team doesn’t keep its calm at pep rallies because some people might not get it. They don’t worry about the other groups in the school. This is the nerd version of this. Nerds are just a group of people who are invested into some sub-culture, but these sub-groups are becoming the main pop culture.

Don't apologize for being you. “Game of Thrones” and “The Walking Dead” are shows that are among the top watched shows each week, because they stick to their format. “Game of Thrones” is based on a fantasy book with dragons, magic and death; “The Walking Dead” is a comic book.

Bottom line, the nerd culture is pop culture and it's seeping into sports culture. Fantasy sports makes billions. Consider that Madden football is a top three-selling game for each of its installments.

This isn’t the first non-sports nerd broadcast. Remember that ESPN2 showed Magic: The Gathering tournaments for years. The end of this year, “Dota 2” — another MOBA game — has a tournament with a $10 million prize payout, which could get media attention just like Sunday night, if not bigger.

These MOBA games are perfect, but don’t expect a lot of other video games to get onto national scene. First-person shooters don’t have overviews showing all the players. The action would be light unless it jumped from person to person, which would be confusing.

There has to be the right amount of action and rules. Massive multiplayer online role-playing games, MMORPGs, like World of Warcraft don’t work for a number of reasons, like balancing issues and different game types.

All in all, don’t expect one gaming event to change the landscape of pop culture. Don’t expect a tournament for Super Smash Bros. and Call of Duty, but the next time ESPN2 does a MOBA game, Blizzard’s card game Hearthstone or maybe the next big Starcraft 2 tournament don’t be mad, just embrace life after high school.

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Jarom Moore

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